CrushAlot wrote:

CashMoney wrote:

orangeblobman wrote:Here's the thing though, when you blow up a team and trade away half your starting line up, you shouldn't have to wait for your resulting product to "get better". Melo and Amar'e, with all their supposed greatness, should be rolling over teams like the Cavs already.

Storm on the horizon, another lost decade.

Yeah just like the Heat were rolling over teams during their first 15 games right? The Cavs beat the Lakers as well and at the end of the day it's a pro team playing a pro team. How about watching more than 2 games before deciding that the next decade is lost?

The Cavs have only won 11 games out of 58 this season. A superstar lineup should be able to handle a team trying to move beyond 10 wins. Amare didn't look good. Jamison played Melo like was a rookie. The team is already having to rely on Billups way too much. JJ Hickson looked like the best big in the league against the Knicks. I think there is reason for concern.

Yeah 11 games won and 2 against the Knicks. Amar'e and Melo have had 2 games and 1 practice together. Billups also had 2 quick fouls and didn't play most of the 1st half and Melo did something to his right elbow during the later part of the game. They're going to lose games as well as win games but I'm not concerned after a 1-1 start to the new look Knicks. If they play .500 ball for the rest of the way they're making the playoffs. I'm not worried, they'll play better than .500 ball the rest of the way.

nykshaknbake wrote:

fishmike wrote:I know MDA doesnt care about defense because vmart says so 8x a day so it must be true.

Surround Melo/stat with guys who defend, shoot and are big and athletic. Hey... thats Mosgov, Chandler, Felton and Gallo

JJskinny will help. Earl Barron would be GREAT. His defense isnt anything special but he camps out around the paint and grabs every free board and can knock down the open J

A Earl/Amare/Melo/Fields/Billps starting lineup w/ Douglas, Turiaf, Williams and JJskinny is a solid rotation for what we have to work with this year.

I would love to sign Barron and Troy Murphy. Barron hasn't played in a while..how was he doing last time he was active?

It's not just 2 games. I was bringing it up because before the trade the team was starting to get it going defensively, but over the course of the year they've had other good defensive games. Many of their wins were due to them actually doing a good job defensively. In the end they've still won more than they've lost and you usually win games when you do a better job than your opponent.

We lost size in this deal and once we can replace that, things should settle down. Let's not make it seems like this team NEVER plays D, cuz that's not true. They're not a strong defensive team and even when they do defend it's inconsistent. The rebounding is a bigger issue to be honest.

nixluva wrote:

nykshaknbake wrote:

fishmike wrote:I know MDA doesnt care about defense because vmart says so 8x a day so it must be true.

Surround Melo/stat with guys who defend, shoot and are big and athletic. Hey... thats Mosgov, Chandler, Felton and Gallo

JJskinny will help. Earl Barron would be GREAT. His defense isnt anything special but he camps out around the paint and grabs every free board and can knock down the open J

A Earl/Amare/Melo/Fields/Billps starting lineup w/ Douglas, Turiaf, Williams and JJskinny is a solid rotation for what we have to work with this year.

I would love to sign Barron and Troy Murphy. Barron hasn't played in a while..how was he doing last time he was active?

It's not just 2 games. I was bringing it up because before the trade the team was starting to get it going defensively, but over the course of the year they've had other good defensive games. Many of their wins were due to them actually doing a good job defensively. In the end they've still won more than they've lost and you usually win games when you do a better job than your opponent.

We lost size in this deal and once we can replace that, things should settle down. Let's not make it seems like this team NEVER plays D, cuz that's not true. They're not a strong defensive team and even when they do defend it's inconsistent. The rebounding is a bigger issue to be honest.

nixluva wrote:

BlueSeats wrote:

nixluva wrote:Before the trade they held 2 opponents to under 100 points!

Wow, that's scary.

My point is that they played good D. Not great, but for this team that's good D and more than enough to win games with this offense. You have to be realistic. Our 2 best players aren't good defenders, so how great can we be on D? We have to get to the point where the D and rebounding is good enough to win games with our strength, which is offense.

For this COACH, that's good. For this team, it isn't.

nixluva wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BlueSeats wrote:

nixluva wrote:Before the trade they held 2 opponents to under 100 points!

Wow, that's scary.

My point is that they played good D. Not great, but for this team that's good D and more than enough to win games with this offense. You have to be realistic. Our 2 best players aren't good defenders, so how great can we be on D? We have to get to the point where the D and rebounding is good enough to win games with our strength, which is offense.

For this COACH, that's good. For this team, it isn't.

The team is built upon players that aren't great on D. Even with a defensive specialist, just how good could these guys get? What we have is a roster built with strong offensive talent. We need to do what we can to put better defensive players around our stars and I believe that is something Donnie wants to do, but he can do it all at once. It's gonna take a minute for him to fix the holes. We know that he's fully aware of how important those things are, but he had to set up the core 1st, which he's done and now he can concentrate on the role players. None of the role players we have are on long contracts. Donnie knows what he's doing.

Every "defensive coach" that gets hired to a team gets his players to play defense because he has a certain defensive scheme that works. Whatever D'Antoni's defensive scheme is (if he has one) it is clearly a failure. He is too stubborn to accept that or add a defensive assistant coach and this will ultimately be his downfall. It also doesn't help that Mike stresses offense over defense and that is evident when the first thing he mentions after giving up 115 points to the Cavaliers is "hitting more open shots".

Uptown wrote:

CashMoney wrote:

Uptown wrote:Agree that the team is set up to win big in the playoffs if we can add a few more pieces. With that said, its hard to make the case that the coach emphasizes defense when his team is second to last in defense this year as towards the bottom last year.

How many times do we see teams near the bottom of the league in scoring and feild goal % play us and put up season highs in pts? If Mike really cared about defense, he wouldn't play his guys out of position so much. When he puts Melo at the 4 and Amare at the 5 he's thinking about the offensive advantages we might have and seems to be ignoring the defensive disadvantages he puts his teams in.

And dont tell me Malo and Amare cant be a part of a good defensive team. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were never confused with being defensive players until Thibbs got a hold of them in Boston and put in an effective defensive system. Now Pierce and Allen are apart of the best defensive unit in the league.

Often times MDA has to plays guys out of position because we're thin. Heck, is Shawn Williams is not a Center yet MDA has to play him there for the time being. Turiaf is at best a PF not even close to a Center but he's who we have and what we need to roll with. I have faith in DW and MDA to get this team to where it needs to be.

He doesn't have to play Shawne Williams at the 5 when Shelden Williams is on the bench. No, Willimas is not a naturaly 5 either, but is much better suited than Shawne. But even if we had a big man, not sure how much MDA would play him anyway. Darko never sniffed the court, AR couldn't get a minute, Curry couldn't even get his uniform back from MDA.

Also, someone answer me this, MDA seems to be jonesin' for Jeffries who essentially has the same build as AR. Why couldn't MDA at least try to have AR play a similar role?

Shawne is a good defender and actually was pretty good against Bogut. He has also been good against forwards. Jared is much stronger than AR and his knowledge of the game is far superior. There's no comparison between AR and Jared when it comes to the team concept on both ends. AR is more physically talented, but it's between the ears where he doesn't stack up.

Mike clearly isn't Thibs on D, but neither is Thibs that amazing on O. This team has made MAJOR changes 3 years in a row. How can any coach establish a team identity when the team keeps changing? This is why I believe he deserves a chance to go to camp with this roster and finally get to work on a team that is closer to a final version. There are more changes due, but less than the major overhauls we've had the last 3 years. I'm confident that given time and the balance on the roster we need, this coach will do a great job.

Think about it, do we have more than one very good to great defensive player on this team? I'd say TD is the closest thing we have to that. He also takes chances that lead to blown coverage and he destroys the offense as the PG. Still that's not a lot to work with. Once we can add a rebounder or 2, that should help a lot. We block a ton of shots, but don't always get the rebound and that kills us.

Uptown wrote:

CashMoney wrote:

Uptown wrote:Agree that the team is set up to win big in the playoffs if we can add a few more pieces. With that said, its hard to make the case that the coach emphasizes defense when his team is second to last in defense this year as towards the bottom last year.

How many times do we see teams near the bottom of the league in scoring and feild goal % play us and put up season highs in pts? If Mike really cared about defense, he wouldn't play his guys out of position so much. When he puts Melo at the 4 and Amare at the 5 he's thinking about the offensive advantages we might have and seems to be ignoring the defensive disadvantages he puts his teams in.

And dont tell me Malo and Amare cant be a part of a good defensive team. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were never confused with being defensive players until Thibbs got a hold of them in Boston and put in an effective defensive system. Now Pierce and Allen are apart of the best defensive unit in the league.

Often times MDA has to plays guys out of position because we're thin. Heck, is Shawn Williams is not a Center yet MDA has to play him there for the time being. Turiaf is at best a PF not even close to a Center but he's who we have and what we need to roll with. I have faith in DW and MDA to get this team to where it needs to be.

He doesn't have to play Shawne Williams at the 5 when Shelden Williams is on the bench. No, Willimas is not a naturaly 5 either, but is much better suited than Shawne. But even if we had a big man, not sure how much MDA would play him anyway. Darko never sniffed the court, AR couldn't get a minute, Curry couldn't even get his uniform back from MDA.

Also, someone answer me this, MDA seems to be jonesin' for Jeffries who essentially has the same build as AR. Why couldn't MDA at least try to have AR play a similar role?

CrushAlot wrote:

Uptown wrote:

CashMoney wrote:

Uptown wrote:Agree that the team is set up to win big in the playoffs if we can add a few more pieces. With that said, its hard to make the case that the coach emphasizes defense when his team is second to last in defense this year as towards the bottom last year.

How many times do we see teams near the bottom of the league in scoring and feild goal % play us and put up season highs in pts? If Mike really cared about defense, he wouldn't play his guys out of position so much. When he puts Melo at the 4 and Amare at the 5 he's thinking about the offensive advantages we might have and seems to be ignoring the defensive disadvantages he puts his teams in.

And dont tell me Malo and Amare cant be a part of a good defensive team. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were never confused with being defensive players until Thibbs got a hold of them in Boston and put in an effective defensive system. Now Pierce and Allen are apart of the best defensive unit in the league.

Often times MDA has to plays guys out of position because we're thin. Heck, is Shawn Williams is not a Center yet MDA has to play him there for the time being. Turiaf is at best a PF not even close to a Center but he's who we have and what we need to roll with. I have faith in DW and MDA to get this team to where it needs to be.

He doesn't have to play Shawne Williams at the 5 when Shelden Williams is on the bench. No, Willimas is not a naturaly 5 either, but is much better suited than Shawne. But even if we had a big man, not sure how much MDA would play him anyway. Darko never sniffed the court, AR couldn't get a minute, Curry couldn't even get his uniform back from MDA.

Also, someone answer me this, MDA seems to be jonesin' for Jeffries who essentially has the same build as AR. Why couldn't MDA at least try to have AR play a similar role?

I agree. D'Antoni does not play a lot of the guys Walsh brings in with size. Williams is on the court more for his offensive abilities. Sheldon does board and bang had a nice run when Martin and Anderson were out so getting him on the floor when JJ Hickson is abusing your team doesn't seem like an illogical move. As far as Jeffries is concerned, my guess is that D'Antoni is planning on doing something very innovative like have Jeffries defend the point. Is Bender far behind Jeffries for this team?

Thats what I'm afraid of. It worked one time against Rondo, then MDA couldn't help himself had Jeffries guarding all point guards long after it stopped working. Dont get me wrong, Jeffries is a smart defensive player who draws charges, hustles and rotates okay. However he doesnt solve our lack of rebounding problem nor will he keep anyone out of the paint.

Hopefully we get a rebounder. Defense is nice but alot to hope for.

nixluva wrote:

nykshaknbake wrote:There was no upward trend of improving defense, throughout this season. They played good defense occasionally. Two games isn't getting it together. The vast majority of the wins have been due to the offense not defense, unless many really means few. So as long as they are above 0.500 they are doing a better job than your opponents? Ok, if you are satisfied with 2 superstars and 0.500 moving forward it's good. Good thing Mike D'Antoni coaches rebounding then.

nixluva wrote:

nykshaknbake wrote:

fishmike wrote:I know MDA doesnt care about defense because vmart says so 8x a day so it must be true.

Surround Melo/stat with guys who defend, shoot and are big and athletic. Hey... thats Mosgov, Chandler, Felton and Gallo

JJskinny will help. Earl Barron would be GREAT. His defense isnt anything special but he camps out around the paint and grabs every free board and can knock down the open J

A Earl/Amare/Melo/Fields/Billps starting lineup w/ Douglas, Turiaf, Williams and JJskinny is a solid rotation for what we have to work with this year.

I would love to sign Barron and Troy Murphy. Barron hasn't played in a while..how was he doing last time he was active?

It's not just 2 games. I was bringing it up because before the trade the team was starting to get it going defensively, but over the course of the year they've had other good defensive games. Many of their wins were due to them actually doing a good job defensively. In the end they've still won more than they've lost and you usually win games when you do a better job than your opponent.

We lost size in this deal and once we can replace that, things should settle down. Let's not make it seems like this team NEVER plays D, cuz that's not true. They're not a strong defensive team and even when they do defend it's inconsistent. The rebounding is a bigger issue to be honest.

I just said that the defense was inconsistent. Clearly I recognize that there was no trend, but they won those last 2 games playing the same way. They were into it on D and held the opponents scoring down. They hadn't been doing that. I believe they would've continued to play that way had they stayed. This team has been streaky and with the young guys we had, that was part of the growing process. Learning how to be consistent. Now we've changed the team for the 3rd straight year and it's setting things back a little. They haven't finished retooling, but once they do and we finish out the season, we hope things will improve in time to be ready for the playoffs.

Tuesday is a big day for this franchise. They must find frontcourt help. Then it's a sprint to the end of the season and hopefully it will be enough to secure a good position.

BlueSeats wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BlueSeats wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BlueSeats wrote:

nixluva wrote:Before the trade they held 2 opponents to under 100 points!

Wow, that's scary.

My point is that they played good D. Not great, but for this team that's good D and more than enough to win games with this offense. You have to be realistic. Our 2 best players aren't good defenders, so how great can we be on D? We have to get to the point where the D and rebounding is good enough to win games with our strength, which is offense.

I think your unintended point was stronger.

What FG % did the Cavs shoot? 42% and 28%! It's not like we just let them shoot. The big problem was rebounding. We had a horrible offensive 3rd qtr and we didn't get enough stops in the 4th qtr nor enough rebounds period. Among other things i'm pretty sure they're gonna focus on these points and get better.

Nix, our opponents shoot a higher % than we do.

We allow the same % that we make, which isn't good, but explains the .500 record. My point wasn't about all season, but that the D was doing part of it's job in limiting the shooting % in that game. They aren't consistent from game to game, but they do have games where they do a good job defensively. IF they defended well consistently they'd have a lot more wins.